Republicans Vote Against Benefits for Active Duty Service Members and Veterans

Republicans Vote Against Benefits for Active Duty Service Members and Veterans

"HRC strongly condemned ... vote by the Republican majority on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs defeating an amendment that would have extended equal benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to active duty service members and veterans legally married to someone of the same sex."

"The measure was defeated by Republican members of the committee with a 12-13 vote falling along party lines. The exception was Representative Jon Runyan (R-NJ) who put partisan politics aside to stand up for all service members and their families."

Why those right wing, conservative motherfuckers. They are very quick to get involved in violent foreign broils and send our troops over into harms way but when it is time to compensate these Veterans for putting their lives on the line, these miserable bastards have the audacity to vote no to anything that benefits and helps these Veterans. But when the defense contractors need money, than these miserable bastards are very quick to allocate tax dollars to them and all of a sudden there is no financial deficit to worry about. Go figure.

metta8 saidRepublicans Vote Against Benefits for Active Duty Service Members and Veterans

"HRC strongly condemned ... vote by the Republican majority on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs defeating an amendment that would have extended equal benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to active duty service members and veterans legally married to someone of the same sex."

"The measure was defeated by Republican members of the committee with a 12-13 vote falling along party lines. The exception was Representative Jon Runyan (R-NJ) who put partisan politics aside to stand up for all service members and their families."

The largest amount of DADT discharges occurred during the Clinton presidency.

Republicans (Yes, Republicans) initiated court action to stop DADT in 2004 which caused the repel of DADT in 2010.

Democrat Obama then took legal action to keep DADT in effect.

Democrat Obama then signed the repel of DADT in 2011 to help get re-elected.

Democrats should have fixed the veterans problem when they had control of Congress.

Yet again we have another example of why most gays want to get married: MONEY.

Clinton signed DADT into law in order to prevent an outright ban on gays in the military, and to stop asking new recruits about their sexual orientation (the question used to be on the initial paperwork).

Republicans tried to stop DADT in 2004 so they could reinstate the ban on gays, and start questioning new recruits again.

And, most same-sex marriages happen because of money. Gays don't even come close to a monopoly on that.

paulflexes saidClinton signed DADT into law in order to prevent an outright ban on gays in the military, and to stop asking new recruits about their sexual orientation (the question used to be on the initial paperwork).

Republicans tried to stop DADT in 2004 so they could reinstate the ban on gays, and start questioning new recruits again.

And, most same-sex marriages happen because of money. Gays don't even come close to a monopoly on that.

Good review, Paul. Yes, prior to DADT it was illegal to be gay in the military, earning you a dishonorable discharge and even jail time. Clinton DID want to have a more open gay policy, but Congress and the Pentagon opposed him, and it became political poison, a battle Clinton not win under any circumstance in the foreseeable future.

So since Clinton couldn't personally rescind the governing Federal law, and its application through the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), he did an end run trick with an Executive Order. (Oh, those nasty Democratic Presidents with their Executive Orders. Of course it's OK when Republicans use them, including the all-time leader, Bush)

DADT ordered the military not to ask the question, and said service members could remain silent. But if they were exposed as gay by other means the UCMJ still applied and they were kicked out.

And this same sorry misrepresentation that Democrats could have fixed all problems when they had the majority continues to be trotted out by Right Wingers whenever issues of Republican culpability arise. The truth is that Democrats had a filibuster-proof super majority in the Senate for one month. ONE MONTH.

Not a lot you can do in that time period, when the Party of No openly announced they would use every means & legislative procedural trick to block Democrats at every turn.

As for the VA, it's real decline came under GW Bush, and the Republican Congress in power when most of his budgets were approved. Truth is Bush didn't fight for VA increases, and the funding declined in terms of real dollars. Plus thousands of returning veterans from HIS wars were entering a VA system that wasn't funded to handle them.

That's when VA waiting times went through the roof. I know, because I had been using the VA for over 10 years up to that time, and followed these issues. Doctor vacancies increasingly appeared, and the VA began aggressive reviews of existing veterans in order reduce or cancel their benefits. Their wasn't enough money to go around for everyone.

What you don't hear in these types of stories is what other crap is being tacked onto spending bills that often Republicans or Democrats oppose so they are forced to vote against what on the surface appears to be a good thing. Then that is only used against them, "See those awful Republicans/Democrats hate ." I'm not saying that is necessarily the case in this particular instance but it all too often happens.